This invention relates to devices for scrubbing and purifying air, and, more particularly, to devices for removing smoke and other combustion products from enclosed spaces in the event of fire in such enclosures.
In the art of fire-fighting, the problems arising from the delay between the initiation of a fire, even a small one, and the arrival of specialized personnel and equipment to deal with it has remained a major problem. The installation in structures of various types of smoke and fire detectors and the provision of sprinklers has been of value in such situations by reducing the response time of fire-fighting units and by providing some automatic remedy towards the suppression of fires, respectively. However, the insidious effects of early, smoldering fires continue to present a major problem for the occupants of enclosed spaces where such fires frequently originate.
This problem is based on the incapacitating effect on people in an enclosed structural environment of even a relatively mild fire as a result of soot, smoke and other combustion products generated by such fire. Moreover, this hazard can, and frequently does, arise when people are asleep or otherwise unaware that something may be awry.
Typically, such problems are often encountered in institutional environments such as hotels, hospitals, and the like where the people occupying such structures may become incapacitated to the point of insensibility at an early stage in the development of a fire due to the presence of evolving combustion products.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide an environmental air scrubbing system for an enclosed space which, upon the detection of a developing fire, gives alarm and, automatically proceeds to scrub the air in the enclosed space of combustion products, so as to enhance the survival of occupants of such space until appropriate assistance arrives at the scene.
Another object of this invention is to describe an effective combination of components and devices which can expeditiously and economically attain the aforesaid function.
A further object of this invention is to provide a combination of components capable of sensing combustion products in the atmospheric air of an enclosed space and extracting the combustion products from such air, which combination of components may be advantageously disposed within an access door for the enclosed space.
A still further object of this invention is to provide actuatable means integrated with the aforesaid access door, which houses the sensing and purifying components, for sealing the doorway gap when the door is in the closed position, so as to prevent the ingress of combustion products from adjoining areas into the enclosed space, or the development of drafts tending to increase the combustion rate of an incipient fire in such space.